Month: January 2018

Every year, for the last three years, I have attended Taipei Game Show. And every year I take the time to recount/review my experience. This year will be no different. For those of you who aren’t aware, Taipei Game Show (TGS) is an annual video games event held in Taiwan. It’s more like PAX than E3. It’s open to the public, there are no press conference style presentations, and usually they demo unreleased games to the public, but rarely if ever announce new titles. Or at least no new titles that will be important in the Western markets.

Certain companies take TGS very seriously and make an appearance every year. This includes big names from multiple industries such as PlayStation, Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, HyperX, Twitch, and many more. There are also a ton of smaller names, mostly developers, and tons of indie projects from the known like Aragami, to the completely obscure. One thing I always find very interesting is the focus on mobile gaming. Mobile games, as in Android and iOS, are huge in Asia. Much bigger than in the West. They even have mobile eSports and take it seriously. As much if not more space is taken up at TGS by mobile gaming than PC gaming. But console is always king simply because PlayStation, Bandai Namco, and Ubisoft always show up in grandiose style. And yet, Square Enix had their own booth where all they showed was a single mobile Kingdom Hearts game that is only available in Asia, just to exemplify how important mobile is in this event and in the Asia market in general.

What I find interesting is that XBOX has no real presence at TGS. Microsoft doesn’t even try to show up. There are plenty of XBOX ONE controllers used at booths for PC gaming, but XBOX makes no real appearance other than in the store where they sell every type of current gen gaming product you could want. This makes sense because XBOX has almost no market share in Asia. It’s not the platform people game on here. But I find it odd that Microsoft doesn’t at least show up for the PC gaming aspect of the event. But in a way I guess it’s not really necessary because no one in Asia legitimately tries to game on Apple and Linux isn’t a huge thing here for gamers like it is in the US. What I find very disappointing though is that year after year Nintendo makes no appearance. This is Asia. It’s an even stronger, more loyal market for Nintendo than the US. The Switch is big here, especially in Taiwan and Japan. Even higher ups in my company own Switches because Nintendo is a favorite in this region and it happens to be an amazing console. I was happy to see that the Switch had a big presence in the Ubisoft booth this year though.

The free swag was good this year, but it’s not the best I’ve seen it. Ubisoft swag was amazing this year. They went above and beyond everyone else at the event. But the other booths were pretty underwhelming for the most part, save for a few exceptions. Even PlayStation was pretty weak on swag this year, offering only a sticky note pad. Of course the memorabilia available for purchase from PlayStation, and other companies, was quite nice.

As far as the games shown, talking only mainstream AAA titles right now, I was underwhelmed. Usually they present demos and/or videos of unreleased stuff that you may have heard of but haven’t yet had enough time to really make a decision about because not enough had been shown to the public at that point. This year it was mostly stuff that you already knew about, and quite possibly played. A lot of it had already been released or at least had an open beta take place. Some examples of this that were on display to try were Assassin’s Creed Origins, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, Monster Hunter World, and Metal Gear Survive. I’ve played every game on that list in my apartment, with the exception of Assassin’s Creed Origins, at least one time. And AC Origins was released months ago. These sorts of titles should not be shown at an event like this, with the exception of maybe Dissidia Final Fantasy NT and Metal Gear Survive because those games aren’t actually on the market yet. But they both had open betas before this event so there was really no reason to display them here. I was also shocked to find that other than in the PlayStation brochure, there was absolutely no trace of God of War at TGS this year. I don’t know how that’s possible. The game is being released in less than three months. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to show a playable demo. In past years at TGS I’ve gotten to try pre-release games that went on to be huge including Horizon Zero Dawn, For Honor, Attack on Titan and The Division. So it seemed very odd to me that God of War wasn’t featured with such a nearby release.

That’s not to say that there were no new games that hadn’t been played before, because their certainly were. New games on display with demos included Far Cry 5, The Crew 2, Hokuto ga Gotoku (Fist of the North Star), Attack on Titan 2, Detroit: Become Human, and Dynasty Warriors 9. There was also a large number of new mobile games you have never and probably will never hear about as well as a bunch of PC games and lots of HTC Vive VR titles. There was also a huge section of board and card games. This is the case every year and it’s interesting to see. Happy to report that they still carry Settlers of Catan.

Personally, I was happy to get to try Far Cry 5, Hokuto ga Gotoku (Fist of the North Star), and Attack on Titan 2. I’ve been considering buying these three games, once released, for a long time now and I’m glad that I got to actually try them so I can make final decisions about each game.

This was a good Taipei Game Show, but it was not the best year I’ve ever attended. In a lot of ways it made it seem like the best games currently on the docket are already out, Monster Hunter, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and so on, rather than that we have some amazing games coming soon, which we absolutely do. Maybe the timing was just a bit off this year or the very recent releases seemed more important than unreleased titles, but this TGS felt like I paid more for atmosphere than gaming news compared to previous years I’ve attended.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

With this post, as I do with all consoles, I would like to take the time to honor and formally retire my/the Wii U. I finished my last game on the Wii U, Star Fox Zero, and bought a Nintendo Switch. So it’s time to officially move forward with gaming history.

I enjoyed the Wii U. I have never once regretted the purchase. Nor did I regret owning a Wii. There are certain things about the Wii U that I wasn’t ultimately happy with. Such as the very short lifespan I got out of it. I only owned mine for 4 – 5 years and it’s already time to retire it. This has become common practice for Nintendo and it’s a huge problem. But at least it’s not as bad as XBOX and PlayStation offering the same console multiple times in a generation for higher prices with negligible upgrades. The OS/Miiverse was probably the worst thing about the Wii U as a whole.

I believe the Wii U was a necessary iteration of console gaming, as has every Nintendo console to date. Nintendo is the leader in home console gaming innovation and has been for more than a decade. The things they create are ultimately panned by the public and then stolen by Microsoft and Sony, among other game development entities. PlayStation Move and Kinect would not exist without the invention of Wii Motion. And to this day I still hold to the opinion that Wii Motion Plus works/worked better than PlayStation Move and the now defunct Kinect ever did. I believe that the Wii U is directly responsible for current VR technology and have written about this in a previous article for Gaming Rebellion. So for me, the Wii U was not a waste of time/money and I don’t consider it a failed console. I will admit that I didn’t get to play as many games on it as I would have liked due to a lacking library, but I will also say that many of the games I did play on the Wii U were excellent. A few obvious examples include Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and of course Bayonetta 2. The fact that two of those games are being remastered for the Switch is very telling about just how good they are/were. Of course it does irritate me that I could have purchased them on the Switch but that’s so many games on all platforms these days.

Another Wii U game I really liked.

By my count I beat 25 games on the Wii U and played a number of other ones. Certainly a low offering for a home console. But at the same time I can say that of those 25 only two of them were games I considered disappointing and one of those was an indie title valued at $3. That’s a 92% success rate for enjoyable games. I didn’t have anywhere near that success rate on my PS3 or PC and don’t on my PS4 now. So it really comes down to the quantity vs quality argument. But ultimately I am happy to have owned a Wii U. It’s an important part of the history of gaming and I am glad to have been fortunate enough to be able to experience it, even if for only a short while.

Now I have a Switch and I am very impressed by it. I put off buying one for a long time but knew that I would have to eventually get one to play Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But even without those two amazing games, I have to say that this is a great console. It’s compact, convenient, and versatile. The OS is worlds better than that of the Wii U. The system is way faster as far as loading times and movement between menus. The many control options make it perfect for every type of player. One of the greatest improvements is how easy it is to both capture and post screenshots to social media. You can even add text directly to the screenshots and make your own memes right on the console. That’s something all consoles should implement. I also really enjoy the sleep mode function. The console never really turns off. It just goes to sleep. That means that the load up is always really fast and you can turn the console off without closing the game and you pick up right back where you paused. But it’s a lot more complete sleep mode than that of the PS4. The lights turn off and the console seems to stop functioning altogether while the PS4 sleep mode still feels like the console is on and shouldn’t be moved for fear of damage. You can confidently move the Switch while in sleep mode without incurring any damage.

Picture taken on the Switch.

One has to admit that regardless of how you feel about Nintendo and their games, the Switch is the most revolutionary console this gen, meaning once again Nintendo is the only company to really justify releasing another console by actually offering us a new generation of gaming rather than just increasing power and graphics quality and keeping pretty much everything else the same. I guess you could tack on VR to PlayStation but that’s not even as widely adopted as the Switch yet and it’s been on the market longer.

I’ve not played too many games on the Switch as of writing this, but I have already gotten 100% completion on Super Mario Odyssey and it was well worth the purchase. I’m inclined to call it the best Super Mario platformer ever made. But I honestly don’t believe that such an amazing console would have come about if not for the Wii U existing first. The amount of data gained from having that console on the market and the feedback from it made the Switch in its current form possible. So I’m glad the Wii U happened and I’m glad that I got to be part of that feedback cycle. So I say goodbye Wii U. I salute you for the many great gaming experiences I got from you and the countless more your legacy is and will be responsible for.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

The final game I’ll be playing on the Wii U is Star Fox Zero + Guard. I thought it was appropriate to do this as my first Gaming Photography post of 2018.

Sadly this wasn’t the game it should have been. I’ve been playing Star Fox games since the original 1993 version and I’ve beaten every one to be released on home console, including Star Fox 2 on the SNES Classic. It’s a franchise I hold very dearly. I had high hopes for Zero, but it just doesn’t measure up. The truly sad part is that the only real problem with the game is the terrible motion controls. The graphics are quite good. The level design is true to the franchise. The narrative is the same rehashed Star Fox plot you get every time, and that’s fine. There’s new vehicles, new characters, new bosses, and the classic multi-path map that allows you to tailor your campaign experience differently every time. It’ s a sound Star Fox game. But the controls make it nearly unplayable. I could not fly with the precision necessary to beat the special bosses and challenges. I went into the game wanted to get a gold completion on every mission. I quit playing before I even made it through a second playthrough because I could tell I wasn’t going to make any noticeable progress in a manageable amount of time. I would absolutely play a remastered version of the game on the Switch if they did away with the motion controls completely and just let me play it as a traditional single screen Star Fox game with a pro controller and adjusted the targeting and controls accordingly for that gameplay scheme. But unless you’re a die hard Star Fox fan like I am, then I absolutely cannot recommend you to play this game. That however did not stop me from getting some nice pictures though.

I only took 327 total pictures over the course of this game, which is extremely low for me. But the lackluster gameplay cut my time with the game short. I was also very annoyed by the HUD and dialog text ruining many of my pictures but that is standard for this franchise so I’m not mad. So now I’d like to present my top 10 photos from Star Fox Zero. I take my photos through my PC with an Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro in the case of console games. I also post them on my Twitter and Instagram often.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

*If you’d like to see the full resolution image please right click and press “view image”.

Please let me know what you think of my shots. Any feedback is appreciated because I would like to improve my gaming photography skills.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

Happy to be a bit more timely this year about posting my gaming resolutions. Last year it was February before I was able to get this up. Hopefully that’s a good sign. So to complete the much needed transition to 2018 I wanted to continue my tradition of posting my gaming goals for the upcoming year.

As I’ve said in the past, I believe in the power of the written word. I truly believe that taking the time to write down and publish your goals helps bring them to fruition. That’s why I take the time to do this post every year. Last year I set 18 goals and completed 12 of them. That’s pretty good in my book. If I can complete at least 72% of this year’s goals again, I would be pretty happy with myself. So let’s get to it.

This year I’m actually setting a gaming resolution as well as my usual gaming goals. I’ve thought long and hard about this and I think it’s the right decision for 2018. As most of us are, I’m extremely backlogged. Not just with crappy indies I was never really going to take seriously. And not just with games I got for free. But I actually have a long list of AAA titles that I paid for that haven’t even been touched. So this year I’m making the conscious decision to not allow myself to purchase more than three games released in 2018. Ideally I’m not going to purchase many games at all, but if older stuff I’ve been waiting for goes on sale, I’ll probably pick it up. But as far as new titles are concerned, I’m limiting myself to just three games released in 2018. The idea is that this will hopefully motivate me to work on my backlog rather than just adding to it indefinitely. Then if by Black Friday I’ve made some real headway I may allow myself to purchase some 2018 titles if they’re at greatly reduced prices. But ultimately I’m not planning on buying more than three new games this year. I don’t know what those games are going to be just yet but I can say with confidence that I will definitely be playing the new God of War, which should surprise no one. The only other title I’m seriously considering at this point is Monster Hunter World because I really enjoyed the beta. Games like Spider-Man and The Last of Us Part 2 can wait till 2019 with hefty price drops.

My Gaming Goals for 2018

1. Final Fantasy VII [for the first time] (PS4)

I set this as a goal for 2017 and I never got around to it. So I’m making it a priory for 2018. And by priority I mean out of the gate this is going to be one of my first games for this year. In fact, by the time this post is published I hope I’ll have already started it. I even changed my desktop and mobile wallpapers to FFVII pictures to motivate myself to play it.

2. The Witcher 2 (PC)

This game was the reason I built my PC. I set this as a goal for 2017 but never got around to it. But now my PC is built and I have no excuse not to get it done. And I hope to complete it as soon as possible so I can finally play The Witcher 3.

3. The Witcher 3 (PC)

I built my PC to play The Witcher 2, but playing The Witcher 3 was always planned as well. And I actually won a free copy of the GOTY Edition at the end of 2017 so I really need to beat 2 so I can get to 3.

4. God of War (PS4)

If you’ve been reading my blog or following me on Twitter for a while then you know I’m a hardcore God of War fan(boy). I own three copies of 1, three copies of 2, two copies of 3, two copies of Ghost of Sparta, two copies of Chains of Olympus, and one copy of Ascension. Of course I’m going to play this newest one. And I’ve been very critical of this upcoming installment of the franchise. I have a lot of issues with what I’ve seen and heard about it. Especially concerning the boy. But I’m still gonna play it. Probably going to get the collector’s edition so I can have another Kratos statue. That’s just the way I am with this franchise.

5. Nioh (PS4)

I’ve been waiting to play this game for a long time. On my YouTube channel I did Let’s Plays of both the alpha and the beta. The only reason I’ve waited this long to buy the game is that I was waiting for the Complete Edition to release and drop in price. I picked it up during Black Friday sales and I plan on streaming it on my channel.

6. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC)

Bought this game in 2015 and just haven’t gotten around to playing it. Now they’ve released the sequel and I’ve heard that’s pretty good so I need to clear this one first so I can get to that one.

7. Final Fantasy XV (PS4)

Bought this for Black Friday in 2015 and somehow haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve only heard good things about it and enjoyed the demos I’ve played so this is a no brainer.

8. Super Mario Odyssey [100% Completion] (NS)

I finally bought a Nintendo Switch, to play this game. I bought plenty of other games as well, but this is the game that ultimately pushed me over the edge to buy one. I will not only beat it but I’m gonna get every whatever the collectible is called in this one. It looks amazing. It won a Game of the Year award. It almost won all the GOTY awards. I can’t think of a better console to debut my Switch with.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild [100% Completion] (NS)

Pretty sure I don’t have to explain this one.

10. Platinum at least 1 game for PS4

This is just a tradition I’ve kept ever since I got my first PS3. I always do at least one platinum a year. I usually don’t even pick a hard game. I actually got two last year (Ratchet & Clank 2016 / Game of Thrones a Telltale Series). Probably just going to do Guardians of the Galaxy a Telltale Game Series because I want to play that and it will be an easy platinum.

11. Try No Man’s Sky

I bought NMS ironically knowing full well that it’s trash and that I have no interest in playing it. I basically bought it out of spite because of an argument I had with a friend. But I never actually opened it, so I just need to play it long enough to confirm that I was right and that it’s a waste of my time. I did pay for it so I might as well try it.

12. Perfect Audio Recording for my Channels

I built my PC last year and bought some solid recording equipment but had some odd issues with feedback when using my mic so I put off doing commentary recordings for my last few series. But this problem needs to be fixed and soon. So I’ll be doing commentary videos for my next series, which will probably be Knack II and/or Nioh.

13. Knack II

I loved Knack. I hoped for a sequel. I’m glad they made a sequel. I bought it on Black Friday for a good price. I can’t wait to play it. I did a Let’s Play of the first one on my YouTube channel and I plan of doing the same for the sequel. Probably my first Let’s Play series of 2018.

This is a hefty list for 2018. It’s not that it’s a long list of games but it’s a decent amount of huge games. A lot of these are 50 to 100+ hour titles. If I can clear the majority of these goals like I did last year then I’ll be happy. I’ll probably not finish my bonus goals but I’m sure I’ll get some of them in like I did last year.

Bonus Goals

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

StarFox 2

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

World of Final Fantasy

Dark Souls III

Horizon Zero Dawn

Yooka-Laylee

Let me know your gaming goals for 2018 in the comments.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

Like this:

As is tradition, I would like to do a post about gaming in 2017. I know 2017 was a rough year in reality. I would argue worse than 2016 in many ways. But we’re only gonna talk about gaming here and in that realm I would say though there were some definite low points, overall it wasn’t a horrible year. As I always say, I’m gonna do my best to sum up gaming this year but I’m only one man not being paid to do this so realistically I’m probably gonna miss a number of events and I’m only writing from one perspective. Also as we should be aware, I focus primarily, but not exclusively, on console gaming.

First, let me talk about how gaming was for me personally in 2017. It was a solid year. It wasn’t like 2016 where I was able to get through 52 games. But I was able to tackle an acceptable 22 titles. Of those 22, only two game were actually released in 2017. Those would be Mass Effect: Andromeda, which I will of course discuss later in this post, and StarFox 2 on the SNES Classic. In my opinion, the best game I completed in the last year was unquestionably Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Not only was it the best Uncharted game, but it was just genuinely one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. Naughty Dog just doesn’t disappoint.

As far as completing my gaming goals for 2017, I did ok. If you look at my list of 2017 gaming goals from the beginning of the year, I had 12 main goals and six bonus goals. Of those 12 main goals I managed to complete nine of them which is pretty good. But I will say that I did not complete, or even start, two of the most important ones. That is play The Witcher 2 (yes that is a 2) and play Final Fantasy VII. I am making these two games a priority in 2018, starting with FFVII. I’ve even set my desktop and mobile wallpapers to FFVII images in order to motivate myself to play the game. Of the six bonus goals, I completed four of them, which is also pretty good. That’s an overall completion rate of 72%. Not an amazing grade, but definitely passable. Now let’s talk about the highlights of 2017 for the rest of the gaming community. Events are in no particular order.

Indies Take the Reigns

This was an amazing year for indie games. We saw some phenomenal releases of games that were not only critically acclaimed, but financially successful in record time.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

I haven’t personally played this game, but one cannot deny the success or importance of it. Not only has it broken records for Steam concurrent users but it’s also sold at record numbers and rushed out an XBOX ONE release last minute. I actually take a lot of issue with this game. The fact that people are so misguided in their judgement that a movement actually formed calling for an early access game with no single player campaign to be considered for game of the year is insane. It’s one of the most preposterous things I’ve ever heard. But it only shows just how successful the game is. It will be interesting to see what this means for AAA FPS games. If an indie studio can make a single mode FPS game with no campaign or serious production value and only charge $30 for it then how will companies like Activision continue their current COD business model?

Winner of Best Indie Game (The Game Awards 2017)

Cuphead

I knew this game would be a success when it was first announced at E3 back in like 2013. I was actually the person who created the Cuphead wiki page on IGN when I worked for their E3 wiki team that year. It’s beautiful, different, retro, and has a very Disney style story based campaign. It’s already gone double platinum and has spawned various articles and fan creations.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

This game had basically no publisher and kind of came out of nowhere but they’ve already sold enough copies to be profitable. There was a lot of controversy at the beginning about saves possibly getting erased and really I think that ultimately helped the game. This is just another example of how large publishers like EA are blatantly lying to the public when they say single player campaigns are no longer viable and/or profitable because this game is objective proof against that statement. Hellblade also addresses mental illness as part of the gameplay and adds both an interesting perspective to gameplay and brings the conversation about mental illness to the forefront of the gaming community, both of which are good things.

A Hat in Time

This game hasn’t been out too long but it’s doing very well both critically and financially. People really seem to like it, which is great because we need more traditional single player platformers other than just Nintendo first party games and Ratchet & Clank. Hopefully the success of this game will inspire other larger studios to revisit the genre with more than just HD remakes of older games.

EA Screws Everything Up

I’m not going to say it hasn’t happened before, but I can’t recall any other year where EA screwed the pooch so big, so many times, so quickly. Like if you took away EA Sports from the equation, I wouldn’t be surprised if they folded next year after all the bullshit they tried to pull in 2017.

Mass Effect Andromeda

Now personally I didn’t hate this game, but it was no Mass Effect 3. There was a ton of negative press and public opinion because of graphical issues. The story was kind of flat in the end. No DLC was released even though some was promised originally. The game was clearly rushed out; which is sad because it had so much potential. And this really hurt BioWare, which sucks because they used to be one of my favorite studios. But it’s clear that most of these problems are the fault of EA management rather than bad work on the developer side. EA keeps shoehorning in multiplayer, loot boxes, and open world into games, forcing developers to work on too much too quickly and ultimately put out lackluster games, all while being forced to use an engine that’s really only good for one genre. But the worst part is that EA refuses to acknowledge this. They just keep blaming the studios for the failures. They even shuttered BioWare Montreal.

Visceral Games

EA shutdown Visceral Games, the studio that brought you Dead Space. But what was really bad about this was when, why, and how they did it. The studio was in the midst of creating a single player, linear, story focused Star Wars game. Also known as exactly the type of game real Star Wars fans have been waiting for since like The Force Unleashed II. Then when asked about it, EA made a statement that sounded like they were declaring an end to single player, linear campaigns. They then came back and said that’s not what they meant, but it just goes to show you that EA can’t be trusted because they refuse to just give a straight answer about any topic. And that policy of using marketing speak instead of concrete words is finally coming back to bite them in the ass. And it absolutely did not help them that they were releasing a Star Wars themed multiplayer shooter with a joke of a campaign just a few months after closing down Visceral Games and stating that they were not killing but were changing the scope of their project considerably. Read my full thoughts on the closing of Visceral Gameshere.

Star Wars Battlefront II and the Loot Boxes

Star Wars Battlefront II is the sequel no one really asked for. It was a cash grab game made to symbiotically increase sales and popularity of the Star Wars IP with Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. The true irony being that both works garnered a ton of controversy and negativity among the populous. The film did at least make money though.

Because of a combination of predatory business practices, bad blood over the Visceral GamesStar Wars game, and an unacceptably long series of social faux pas, Battlefront II has done terribly. Its sales were considerably lower than its predecessor out of the gate. Disney forced them to completely remove microtransactions from the game until further notice, but they are supposed to be returning at some point. It was reported that EA’s stock value dropped by about $3 Billion because of this whole travesty of a game release. And the company is now responsible for the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

The most important thing about this entire series of events is that it showed that we as a group actually do have real power over the gaming industry. Our comments, tweets, Reddit posts, and angry YouTube videos do make a difference when we work as a single unit with a common goal. This whole ordeal proved that if we would just get organized we could truly change things. And things are changing. Apple now requires all mobile apps with loot boxes to display the possible win percentages. And politicians in the United States and other countries are starting to discuss legislation about stopping predatory monetization practices in games. You can read my full account of the Star Wars Battlefront II controversy and timeline here.

Nintendo Owns It Hard

Nintendo has the odd habit of doing everything the public says they shouldn’t and then making a killing in sales and approval, both critical and public, and no one can ever seem to understand why or how they make this work. They’re just a magical company that shits gold time and time again. Here are some of their highlights for 2017.

Switch

They released a new console that people weren’t sure about and that many said would cannibalize their own handheld market. The console is doing very well and has already outsold the Wii U by leaps and bounds. Not to mention, the top two contested games of the year were both first party Switch games (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild / Super Mario Odyssey). I wasn’t even planning on buying a Switch this year, but they finally got me with Odyssey.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

Everyone said it was impossible to make Rabbids not the most annoying thing ever. I too was one of those people. The idea of a turn based RPG starring Mario and Rabbids sounded ridiculous. In fact it still does. But ultimately it won best strategy game at The Game Awards 2017.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Objectively speaking this was the best game of 2017. It won the Golden Joystick Awards. It won The Game Awards. It made the Switch a financial success much sooner than expected. It’s being called by many the greatest Zelda game ever made, which is a bold statement to even consider making. This is like the new Final Fantasy VII. I haven’t personally played it yet, but from what I understand your children’s children will still be talking about this game.

SNES Classic

The best way to make money is to do so without doing anything you haven’t already done before. Nintendo exercises this statement boldly with the SNES Classic and the NES Classic before it. It’s another amazing trip down memory lane, they’re sold out everywhere, and scalpers are making a killing reselling them. Because Nintendo refuses to manufacture enough of them in order to artificially keep demand high. I actually was able to get one and I have to say that it’s an amazing console.

Mobile Games

The idea of Nintendo getting into mobile games was offensive and worrisome. They already control the handheld market. How would they possibly participate in both markets without quality lacking somewhere? I still don’t really know how to answer that question. But I do know that Super Mario Run was the most downloaded app at one point in 2017. And people seem to love Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

Newsworthy Trailers

The business of trailers seemed to stand out a lot in 2017. Three games stand out the most. By newsworthy I don’t mean the best looking or even most anticipated trailers. I mean trailers that garnered actual news stories other than just “check out this trailer”.

Death Stranding is the latest example of everything that’s wrong with celebrity game development. Just because a specific name, studio, or actor is tied to a game does not mean it will be good. We have seen no gameplay footage and gotten no concrete details but everyone is creaming their jeans over Death Stranding simply because it’s being made by Kojima. The latest trailer makes no sense, tells you nothing, and gives no sort of clues about the gameplay but everyone was losing their minds over it.

I actually really liked this trailer. It doesn’t show us any gameplay footage, but we can assume that because it’s a sequel the gameplay will at least be similar to the first game. What this trailer does show us is that in a Walking Dead style of narrative, zombies are not the biggest problem in the post apocalypse. It’s actually other people. We are shown that we can expect powerful, violent, uncomfortable scenes from the next installment of The Last of Us and that’s a good thing. But many people were angry about the fact that the trailer shows women being tortured. Personally I thought this entire debate was hypocritical bullshit because the women were being tortured by a woman so this can’t be misconstrued as some form of sexism or even objectification for the male gaze. But internet gonna internet so whatever.

Similar to the way people reacted to The Last of Us 2 trailer, a lot of people were really unhappy with the child abuse shown in the latest trailer for Detroit: Become Human. There was a lot of debate about whether or not this kind of thing was ok to show in the marketing of video games or be shown in video games at all. I think this is hypocritical because we wouldn’t be having that conversation when talking about film. Gaming is an entertainment medium with the largest population of users being legal adults. It is perfectly acceptable to address serious themes in such a medium in the same way that it’s socially acceptable to have such things depicted in movies.

Destiny 2

To nobody intelligent’s surprise, Bungie and Activision did exactly what I expected of them. Destiny 2 used the same bullshit scheme of overpromising, under delivering, hiding all the content behind additional paywalls, and delivering no end game; and that shouldn’t have surprised anyone. But this time they screwed up and put a vanilla game trophy behind a DLC paywall when they released an expansion and that really hurt their reputation and supposedly their stock price, for at least a time.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Probably the best example of why EA is bullshit from 2017. Guerilla Games created a beautiful, big budget, story based single player game. And it sold like hot cakes. People loved it. Critics loved it. Sony loved it. They even released a large expansion and priced the whole game fairly with it. Many non-Nintendo gamers believed it should have been game of the year. I definitely think we’ll see a sequel to this game and I hope other studios/publishers take Horizon Zero Dawn as an example for future projects.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Most Socially Aware Marketing Campaign of all Time)

Bethesda makes good games. I don’t love all or even most of their stuff, but I have always respected them as a company. But this year what they showed more than anything else is that they do not function in a vacuum. The company makes marketing campaigns and quite possibly games based on current events and popular opinion. I’ve never played any of the Wolfenstein games, old or new. I’ve always known about the franchise but I’ve never been that interested. I took an interest in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus strictly because of the ad campaign. Trailers and banners with calls to action saying “Make America Nazi Free Again” hit so close to home in 2017. And this campaign wasn’t lost on anyone. Trump supporters were pissed about being called Nazis. Liberals thought it was hilarious and pre-ordered the game just to support the message. It was amazing marketing and ultimately I do think I’ll end up not only buying this game but also the previous titles to get the full story.

Bethesda didn’t stop with Wolfenstein. They also went after EA and launched a campaign to save single player games. Also a super relevant and socially aware ad campaign that absolutely increased sales.

XBOX ONE X Released

Microsoft released “the most powerful console on the market” and people still don’t know what the point of that is if you don’t have a healthy lineup of exclusive titles that you can’t play on a much better PC, which the console doesn’t. They claim this console is for the fans who want the best of the best but even those people are smart enough to build a PC when you look at the games available. And to top it all off, Microsoft keeps focusing on bringing back old titles which often don’t even look good in 4k. It’s like they’re trying to compete with Sony and Nintendo at the same time and failing on both fronts.

Honorable Mentions

A few smaller things happened in 2017 that are not worth going over in detail but should be mentioned when grading the year in gaming as a whole.

Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back

This actually happened and that’s worth talking about in and of itself.

Nioh (PC Version)

This was entirely unexpected and while it’s pretty shitty for early adopters I think it ultimately was a good thing because it lowered the price on both platforms and made all the content easier to access for all late adopters.

Sonic Forces

This happened. Amazing concept to allow people to create their own Sonic characters, but the game itself is about what we’ve come to expect from modern Sonic the Hedgehog. I still bought it predicting that would be the case for some reason.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

Even on their worst day Naughty Dog only ever creates gold and this was far from their worst day.

Overall I’d say 2017 was a solid year for gaming. There were definitely some serious low points, most of which the fault of EA. But the high points outnumber them tenfold. I look forward to 2018 hoping for another year of excellent gaming but I’m curious to see what we get from Nintendo because they came out of the gate with some heavy hitters. I don’t want to see the Switch peter out after only a year.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.